PBwiki Gives US$25m in Web 2.0 Tools to Education

By James Mowery | Published Aug 20, 2008

PBwiki, the world’s largest provider of business and educational hosted wikis, announced that two new programs have been created that will donate up to US$ 25 million of award-winning wiki-based collaboration software.

PBwiki currently hosts well over 250,000 educational wikis, but that is going to soon change as the company will be distributing over 100,000 premium wikis to educational institutions and faculty. The company is also currently one of the largest providers of premium hosted wikis.

Education Needs Collaboration

“With schools and libraries feeling the pinch of the slowing economy, PBwiki wants to make sure educators can still afford the tools they need to make 2008-2009 the year of collaborative learning,” said PBwiki CEO Jim Groff. “Giving away 100,000 premium wikis lets us help out and spread wiki-based collaboration to an even wider audience.”

Two programs are being developed: PBwiki's Back To School Challenge and PBwiki's Partner Program for Education. The Back To School Challenge will allow up to 100,000 individual teachers and librarians to earn a free one-year gold upgrade (valued at US$ 250). The Partners Program for Education will allow school districts and organizations that standardize on the PBwiki system to offer free one-year gold upgrades as an exclusive membership benefit.

This is all driven by the desire to spread Web 2.0 technologies to educational organizations. These applications and services will allow teachers and students to collaborate in ways that students have never imagined. The uses are virtually unlimited.

Most of us here at CMSWire probably can't even count the ways we could have utilized such technologies back when we were in school.

The effects of this could inspire students and teachers to familiarize themselves with technology, Web 2.0, and collaboration. This won't keep students out of the principal's office for using their cell phone during class, but it is nice to see companies like PBwiki giving back to the educational system. More companies should have similar programs.